The strange look is most likely from the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s computational image processing, not from the text itself. The artifacts described—thin strokes, inconsistent blur, bright halos/whiteness, and smoothed background—fit aggressive sharpening plus noise reduction being applied selectively to parts of the image that appear sharp enough, such as text.

Phone cameras have very small sensors and lenses, so they rely heavily on multi-frame processing to reduce noise and increase apparent detail. In some situations, especially lower light, this processing can create unnatural edges and texture. On newer iPhones, Apple’s “Fusion” style processing may still affect files even when using higher-resolution modes, so the result may not look like a simple optical capture.

If you want a more natural result, try shooting in a less processed mode such as RAW/ProRAW if available, or avoid settings/scenes that push the phone into heavy sharpening and noise reduction.